This year’s intake will complete a “major” as well as extra modules in subjects such as science, logic and critical thinking.

Professor Grayling compared his educational philosophy to the Aristotelian principle of making “noble use of our leisure time.”

"The obsolescence-proof thing you can take with you to the future is an ability to think broadly,” he said.

His new college, which draws on the Oxbridge model of one-to-one tutorials, has been accused of encouraging elitism by charging double the fees at Oxford or Cambridge.

Among the lecturers on the books are Steven Pinker, a psychology professor from Harvard; a physicist who served Barack Obama, Lawrence M Krauss; and the historian Sir David Cannadine.

Earlier this year, Professor Grayling suffered the embarrassment of having one of his supporters, Professor Steve Jones, withdraw from the enterprise over its fees.

Professor Jones said at the time: “The fees that he has been forced to apply mean that it can now no longer really claim to be about public education, and, for that reason, I have, amicably, withdrawn from it.”